HISTORICAL SKETCH 



GREENE TOWNSHIP, 



IIAMHTON COOiNTY, OHIO 



DEUVEKEI) BY 






BEKORE THE A i-VV^ 



TWENTY-THIRD ANNUAL FESTIVAL 



Greene Township Harvest Home Association. 



AXTGUST 31, 1882. 



CINCINNATI: 
ROBERT CLARKE & CO, 

1882. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



GREENE TOWNSHIP, 



HAMIITON COUNTY, OHIO, 



DELIVERED BY 



c. iie:p::m:elin, 

II 



BEFORE THE 



TWENTY-THIRD ANNUAL FESTIVAL 



Green Township Harvest Home Association. 



AUGUST 31, 1882. 



CINCINNATI : 
ROBERT CLARKE & CO. 

1882. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH, 



Ladies and Gentlemen, Neighbors and Friends: 

My remarks are limited in time and matter. They 
are not to take over an hour, and I am not to repeat what 
the Hon. Alexander Long has already said npon the history 
of this township at the annual festival in 1869; and yet I 
am to present a connected total of the more interesting 
historical data. The selection is difficult, I>ecause I can 
neither add to nor take away any thing from our history; 
and furthermore for the reason that there is a wide differ- 
ence of opinion as to what should be mentioned and what 
omitted. Most folks have advised me to tell you nothing 
except what flatters you, whilst I conceived my task to be 
to try before all to comprehend myself the history of this 
township, and then to present my conclusions to you, so 
that all of us may be the better participants in our free 
institutions. And natural conditions deserve our first con- 
sideration ; for nature is the beginning of all things, though 
it has not itself a beginning. 

NATURAL CAUSES. 

The official historians of the country's nature are the 
State geologists, and they have reported to us in volume 
1, page 422, as the proper beginning for reasoning on this 
township as follows : 

" Strictly speaking there are no hills in Hamilton 
county, the surface being all referable to the table lands 
and the valleys worn in them. What are called the Cin- 
cinnati hills, for example, are merely the isolated remnants 
of the old plateau, which have so far escaped the long- 
continued denudation. Indeed the high lands of the county 
are all of them outliers or insulated masses, surrounded 
on every side by the valleys of existing rivers^ along deep 



4 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 

excavations wrought out by these streams, under somewhat 
different geographical conditions." 

The popular mind rejects this geological theory, that 
would spirit away from us the most solid tiling we have — 
our hills; for we are constantly reminded that it is an up- 
hill business to come here, and what is more, that the hills 
are growing steeper and the valleys deeper, which again 
causes the waterliow to be more rapid, and often more 
dangerous to those below us. And it pains us to think that 
the grand old plateau that once existed from the Ohio to 
the lakes, if not from way south to way north, is now gone 
forever. But why long for a vanished past when our 
thoughts should be directed to feasible plans against further 
losses and injuries? 

I would not overrate the capacity of man to counter- 
act nature, but neither should we underrate our abilities 
in this respect, when we have not only examples in the re- 
mote past, when the power of man over natural forces was 
much less than now, but also in our own time, when ravages, 
such as molest us, were, if not stopped entirely, at least 
much diminished. 

Have you ever thought what Solomon meant by his 
advice in chapter v, verses 15 and 16 of his Proverbs, when 
he said : 

" Drink water out of thine own cistern and running 
water out of thine own well." 

"Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad and rivers of 
waters in the streets." 

Constructions other than what the words plainly mean 
have been put upon these words. With the help of Lu- 
ther's translation, I think that they are simply an injunc- 
tion to retain and utilize the rainfall and the springs for 
human benefit, and to prevent, or least check, injuries 
from inundations. The products of a country can be mul- 
tiplied as well as increased four fold by irrigation ; droughts 
can be mitigated ; inundations almost prevented, and the 
health of a country much improved by dams here and out- 
lets there, and corresponding drainage. ISTorthern Italy 
has done it for the waters flowing from the Alps. Louis 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF CxREENE TOWNSHIP. 5 

Kapoleon has performed similar work by what is called 
" the rectification of the Rhone." Our task is a small 
matter as compared to these works, and yet it is too big 
for individual efforts, unless they are facilitated by public 
administration duly empowered by law. If you will but 
reflect on this, it will, beside turning your mind to a very 
necessary work, also awaken in you the perception how 
little so far we have understood in this township to do 
things needful in the right way by the co-operation of pub- 
lic administration and private enterprise. 

The retention of a part of our rainfall and its use for 
household, gardening and w^ater-power purposes is, in my 
opinion, for the future of this township a very vital ques- 
tion. We have some cisterns and a few lakelets, but 
should have thousands more. 

Stripping our surface, amounting to 23,040 acres, of 
its forests of hickory, walnut, oak, beach, maple, ash, elm, 
sycamore, ironwood, locust, dogwood, wild cherry and 
buckeye trees has not only caused more sudden flows of 
the rain, but it has deprived us of firewood, building tim- 
ber and shady groves for pleasure grounds. 

We may be unable to compute in money the loss this 
township has sustained by the waste of about 21,000 acres 
in forest, equal to 1,500,000 cords of wood, or 180,000,000 
of cubic feet of lumber ; but no one can doubt that intrin- 
sically this area is worth less now than it was eighty years 
ago. We have indeed a money wealth of $3,000,000 — the 
duplicate makes it but $2,148,298 — to show for it. Count the 
wood cut oft* only at $3 per cord, and it alone would make 
$4,500,000. The fertility washed away could not be re- 
stored for $3,000,000. Nevertheless it remains true that 
these matters raise questions which are very difiicult to 
solve. Each person would argue it from his standpoint. 
The pioneers would say : " For us the woods were an im- 
pediment, and every acre cleared a source of wealth." 
Forestry science would answer : " True, but you cleared 
a little too much, and government should have protected 
future generations against your waste." And you will 
probably say to me: "Why bring up a thing that can't be 



6 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 

helped?" To which I reply : It is to let you know that it 
can he hcljjed, and that the way to do it is to plant trees 
soon and perseveringly, I think, too, that most of you 
know what trees to plant and where to plant them. Those 
of us who do not, must go to persons scientiiically and tech- 
nically educated as to tree-planting, and learn the best meth- 
ods and kinds. But as in nearly every thing else, so is it 
in this. Individual action does not suffice; we must have 
public organization, clothed with public authority, to 
prompt the sluggard and to repress and punish the evil- 
doer, and to aid the feeble. Why should not this town- 
ship own at least 1,000 acres of woods in public grounds ? 
If private persons have the right to withhold or withdraw 
lands from cultivation for immediate use, why not organized 
society, that acts from much higher and more sagacious 
motives ? 

TOPOGRAPHICAL SPECULATIONS. 

The State geologists say in the volume and on the 
page already quoted from : 

" There are two natural ways of ingress to Cincinnati 
by low land, or in other words, there are but two railroad 
routes possible, one by the Ohio, and the other by Millcreek 
Valley." 

You will of course cry out : " But we have a railroad," 
and some prophet will rise and say : " We shall have two." 
Yea. some one will claim that two street railroads are feasi- 
ble, one on the Harrison pike, and the other from Terry's 
Hill, through Warsaw, to Bridgetown. Those wiser still 
will study the history of our roads and point out to us that 
if we want to be, beside a good place to retire to, also a con- 
venient locality for the world's commerce, for travel and 
recreation, we must have a public system for the general 
improvement of all our roads, from the mud roads to the 
macadamized, the turnpike, and especially our Westwood 
railroad. And why ? Because the center of jjopulation, 
that was eighty years ago in the United States 800 miles 
east of us, is now but three miles south of us. AVe have, 
so to speak, been taken in. There are populations on all 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 7 

sides of us in populons cities, one of them a large metrop- 
olis. "We are being rapidly surrounded, and could not, if 
we would, be by ourselves any longer. The poet says : 

" Act well your part, there all the honor lies." 

Our part is to make ourselves acceptable. Every young 
lady present knows that rule. It is an old story. The" 
pioneers knew it. They run their first road from the Ohio 
to Findlay's mill, and thence to Cheviot ; then from Xorth 
Bend to where the Seven-Mile House now stands, and 
where there was formerly an excellent distillery for gen- 
eral convenience. Then they started from Millcreek and 
"Walker's mill, through Cheviot, towards Miamitown, the 
forerunner of the Harrison turnpike. And finally they 
joined in a road near Cumminsville, to what is now Jacobs- 
burg, all tending, by natural ways, about towards the place 
where we are now assembled. No wonder then, dear 
friends, that the social, the convivial and the political fol- 
lowed suit, as we all attest by our presence here to-day. 

THE INDIANS. 

The life of the Indian was barren ; he had no econ- 
omy, either public or private. He was innocent of the 
glory that was inherent in the country, but he was also 
innocent of any devastation. He was also innocent of 
waste. He was the only barren thing in a teeming world. 
That which to us was new was old to him. He loitered, 
where we are on the run ; and of the enhancement of hu- 
man existence through public organisms, which is the 
lever of civilization, but also the danger of freedom, he 
knew almost nothing, and cared less. The fear of subju- 
gation kept him free, but also miserable. 

The country now within the United States is capable, 
as statisticians calculate, of maintaining a population of 
500,000,000, Of Indians there were never in it more than 
500,000. This township now keeps easy 500 families. On 
the basis of Indian life it would hardly keep one. a^o 
Indian village, family, or even hermit, ever resided in this 
locality. There was an Indian village about six miles 



8 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 

northwest of here, and from it a few came here occasionally 
to hunt, as the flint arrow heads, found in our fields, prove. 
According to Indian traditions " coon skins, honey 
and possum fat" constituted the chief attraction of our 
hills, and they were innate here, whilst wolves, hears, deer 
and foxes came here, mucli like most of us, as wanderers 
and exiles. An Englishman, whose rotundity told his love 
of ease, remarked hereon, that he " believed it, because no an- 
imals except those that loved to climb or could fly would 
ever be indigenous to this township." Let us accept the 
accusation which this implies, to wit, that bees and birds, 
the representatives of industry and peace, are our emblems. 
Better be a Tusculum for the seekers of health and quiet- 
ness than an Alexandria which the greedy covet and the 
brutal of mankind fight over. 

OUR INDIAN NAME. 

Little, as I have said, did the Indian bring here ; little 
did he add or change or carry away ; but he invented for 
our part of southwestern Ohio what those who named this 
township have not been able to do, viz : a name from the 
configuration of the country, and we may as well now res- 
cue it from oblivion. I heard of it in this way : 

Forty years ago, after purchasing a piece of land in 
this township, I employed the two sons of Johnson, one of 
the first settlers and tavern-keepers of Cheviot, to build me 
a post and rail fence, that being, as I was told by a pioneer, 
" the best way to keep the peace in a new country, where 
free pasturage of cattle? was of more importance than the 
risrhts of man." The Johnsons were familiar with the In- 
dian traditions, and as anxious to tell them as I was desir- 
ous to hear them. They had indeed become somewhat 
Indianized themselves, including the love of whisky. 

They told me that the Indians on coming up here 
from the Big Miami saw in Taylor's creek and its branches 
the figure of an open left hand stretched eastward, and 
therefore called this region " KKlir/a" " Kuli " standing for 
pretty, and '"ga" for hand, the entire name meaning 
" pretty hand." With a little imagination this figure is 



HISTORICAL SKETCH o/ GREENE TOWNSHIP. 9 

easily traceable upon the ridges of our western slopes, 
and so believing recorded it in my diary. A facetious by- 
stander, a Kentuckian, remarked, "that the open hand is 
a proper designation for this township, as its people were 
ever more ready to take than to give." But when it was 
pointed out to him that the hand meant one stretched to- 
wards Greene township, and that his analogy did not fit, 
he trotted oft' on the horse, he had come to trade, without 
further reply. 

You are all aware that the present name of our town- 
ship, Greene, was given in honor of the Revolutionary 
general of that name. One " e " has been dropped in com- 
mon use, and the intended tribute to public virtue rather 
lost for a color that fits neither our past nor present veg- 
etation. The first was in its forest dress, like Joseph's coat,, 
" many coloried," especially in the fall, and the second is 
for those that have seen the Emerald Isle, rather gray 
than green. 

Why, any way, attach names of men to towns ? Why 
imitate the appellations of other places? Why not use 
names that express lasting landmarks ? Mount Airy and 
Dent, villages in this township, are such designations, and' 
so was Kuli-ga, our Indian name. Of the general cogno- 
men, "township," and its real import, "fenceship," we 
will speak further along. 

THE FRUSTRATED FRENCH SUPREMACY. 

I presume you all know that up to 1745 no one dis- 
puted French supremacy over this county, so far as it lay 
west of the Alleghanies. In consequence of the wars be- 
tween England and France British attention became fixed 
on the French possessions in iN'orth America, and in 1763, 
in pursuance to the Treaty of Paris, Great Britain became- 
sole owner of all of North America that was not held by 
Spain. The defeat of the French in this matter has been 
deemed a sort of preliminary liberation of this country, 
and we of the West, especially we inhabitants of the area 
between the two Miamis, are told, that we owe gratitude 
to Anglo-Saxonism for this victory. 



10 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 

I can not see it quite in that light, because reflection 
convinces me that our farming and gardening, as well as 
our modes of living, have not developed as well under 
specific English order as they would have done if there 
had been a little more constant admixture of French 
ways. 

De Tocqueville, himself a Frenchman, does indeed ad- 
mit a preference for English colonization, because under 
it "the colonies have always enjoyed more internal free- 
dom and more political independence than those of other 
nations." This admission does credit to French liberality, 
but it proves lack of full knowledge. The truth is, that 
England was least fair to the Indians and more rigid in 
the assertion and maintenance of royal sovereignty than 
most other monarchies, Spain perhaps alone excepted. 
The list of grievances in our Declaration of Independence 
proves this conclusively. 

Carlyle contends, that the question was " whether this 
part of creation should belong to the good canonier (the 
French) or the good plougher (English)." This is a double 
misconception. The French are not the better canoniers, 
nor the English the better ploughers. Had he compared 
their respective wood-chopping capacities he might have 
made out a greater dexterity for the English. 

Volncy thought that the issue was, " whether the 
minds of the future Americans should be kept contracted or 
allowed to expand." He wrote this in 1806, when French 
revolutionary ideas were believed to be the liberating 
causes for all mankind, and when England was regarded 
as the bulwark of the pernicious royal and aristocratic 
tendencies of past ages. 

Franklin objected, in 1754, at Albany (where he was as 
the delegate of Pennsylvania for the purpose of uniting all 
North America under one Government) to further French 
occupation of our "West, " because they were stealing the 
affections of the Indians ; would incite them to incursions 
into the eastern provinces ; hindered the English from 
having more land, which was equivalent to a diminution 
of population, since the human species multiplied in pro- 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 11 

portion to the lands open to thorn." He added : " Tliis 
hindrance is tantamonnt to killing thousands of children 
before they are horn. " You can see very plainly that 
Franklin had no fears as to over-population ; such as Mal- 
thus scared the world with iifty-eiglit years afterward. 

The French answered : " The Indians love us, because 
we understand how to affiliate with them. They invade 
the eastern English provinces because they want to get 
back what's their own." And, as to land: "You now 
have more than you want and know how to take care of 
properly." To Franklin's land plan (a mixed settlement 
and arrangement between English gentry and British farm- 
ers and laborers) they replied : "Come freely among us as set- 
tlers, and we will be liberal in our terms ; but if you come 
armed and with your gentry, you will be stopped, and get 
nothing but free withdrawal" Had Franklin's land plan 
been adopted, and even this township, among the rest, would 
have had a society, mixed of English noblemen and work- 
ingmen, plaguing the life out of each other. 

In 1754, there were one and one-fourth millions of in- 
habitants east of the mountains, of whom about one-fifth 
were English, Scotch, and Irish ; three-fifths native Amer- 
icans, and the remaining fifth mixed of Germans, French, 
Hollanders, and negroes. The Moravians had settlements 
both in the East and the West, Count Zinzcndorf having 
inspired them with the true method for interhabitation 
with the Indians in peace. Franklin himself mentioned 
the fact that " Debtors, the common English, the German 
bond-servants, and negro slaves escaped from the easteru 
provinces." May we ask, Why ? 

Do you not, then, argree with me that the worst thing 
that could have happened to this western region, our town- 
ship included, would have been, that one JEaropeanism 
should have succeeded in suppressing all other European- 
isms? Would not that have prevented the establishment 
of the true American cosmopolitanism ? The freedom 
from socially obstructive Europeanisms is our glory. And 
our progress is always measured by our capacity to keep 
down or to wear out prejudices, idiosyncrasies, and man- 



12 HISTaRICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 

nerisms, which the old world will not, and the new world 
should not, tolerate. 

THE JEALOUSIES OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND ABOUT AMERICA. 

The maternal relations of two parent states to colonies, 
in Avhich they are rivals, are much akin to those of two 
mothers-in-law as -to the couple, made up of their son and 
daughter-in-law respectively. The mothers are jealous 
of each other, keen for the recognition of their authority, 
and unctiously pressing in their affections. 

On the other hand, the couple, whose filial obediences 
are claimed, are chary of their responses, punctilious about 
their independence, and tenacious in taking their own 
course. An incident that occurred in the earlier days of 
the settlement of Delhi township illustrates this observa- 
tion. A descendant from German parents had married the 
daughter of an English family, both mothers-in-law being 
alive, and anxious for the couple's welfare. The mothers 
importuned for the ways of living of their respective homes 
and annoyed the couple more than they did them good. 
Finally, the latter declared that they would take the coun- 
sels of both into serious consideration, and take whatever 
they thought good, but decline that which appeared inap- 
propriate. They became the model family of the neigh- 
borhood, and enjoyed more of the good things of this life 
than both mothers had ever enjoyed. 

America was in trouble in a similar way between 
1740-70 as to England and France, and came out finally in 
like manner, by an impartial judgment between both. 

In 1745, La Come, who deemed himself called upon 
to be the special advocate of French pretensions, and who 
is described as " a recklessly sanguinary partisan," wrote, 
with a view to deter English immigration : 

" From the Canada Lakes be von d the Alleghanies all 
is desert, mere hunting ground for the Six Nations, dotted 
here and there an English trading house or adventur- 
ous squatter farm. The French have stockades, castles at 
military points, and fortified places in Louisiana itself, and 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 13 

are very skillful with the Indians. The English have no 
establishments of any solidity in these parts." 

That the French did not believe in this story of a des- 
ert (the usual one as to unknown countries), we know from 
the fact tliat the French governor, La Gallisonniere, was 
alarrued at a new appearance in the political sky of Amer- 
ica, viz., attempts at colonization on their own account by 
the colonists on the Atlantic, especially that of the Ohio 
Land Company, undertaken with the sanction of the Gov-> 
ernor of Virginia by Washington and his brothers, in 1749. 
He sent out a vigilant commandant with 300 men, and or- 
ders : " to trace and occupy the valleys of the Ohio and of 
the St. Lawrence as far as Detroit ; to bury jylates of lead 
up and down the country, with inscriptions signifying that 
from the furthest ridge, whence water trickled towards 
the Ohio river, the country belonged to France. And to 
also nail Bourbon lilies to the forest trees, and to forbid the 
Indians to trade with the English, but to expel the En- 
glish traders from the towns of the Miamies." 

AVhether any of the French soldiers came into this town- 
ship, and found any English traders here can be neither 
affirmed nor denied. Most likely there were some squat- 
ters here, such as La Corne speaks of. Of the plates of 
lead or the Bourbon lilies there is no knowledge, not even 
a tradition. But the expedition had one, to us, very im- 
portant eflect. It checked the extension of the authority 
of the eastern provinces over the lands north of the Ohio. 
Our special region was thus saved all the litigation and 
disputes caused by the Virginia Land System, which em- 
barrassed the Scioto valley and Kentuck}'. It prevented 
probably also, that we, too, become the " bloody ground" in 
more senses than that of fights with the Indians. Had 
Virginia and Pennsylvania, as well as other States, suc- 
ceeded in perfecting their land policies, Ohio would 
have been parceled out to several states, and their respect- 
tive jealousies would have divided our society seriously. 
They did it much more than they should have done. Our 
township was, from causes to be hereafter stated, perhaps 



14 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 

freer from them than other portions of our part of the 
State. 

The French movements aroused Pitt in England, and 
he ordered, 1753, the British governors in America : " Stand 
on your defense over there. Repel by force any foreign 
encroachments on British dominions ! " But where .were 
these British dominions west of the Alleghanies? By 
treaty of Utrech, 1713, and Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748, Eng- 
land had acquiesced in the title of France to all of North 
America, exactly as Governor Gallisonniere had defined it 
in the order which we have just quoted. There was a dor- 
mant American title, that of the future people of America. 
It, Franklin expressed at Albany, thus : 

" Both the French and English now know that the 
great territory beyond the Appalachian mountains, on 
both sides of the Ohio, and between that river and the 
lakes, is one of the best of North America. The soil is 
rich and fertile, the atmosphere healthy, the climate mild; 
chase, fish, and game exist in abundance, and there are 
great facilities for commerce with the Indians ; and the 
lakes and great rivers open for hundreds of miles to inter- 
nal trade most advantageous water-ways. 

" Thus favored by nature, the territory will, without 
doubt, perhaps before a hundred years, be a rich, populous, 
and important possession, and be, either for France or 
England, a great addition to power." 

It must, in justice to Franklin, be stated, that these 
words were addressed to the British governor in New 
York, who had called the conference at Albany for the os- 
tensible purpose of forming a union of the North Ameri- 
can British Provinces, an object very dear to Franklin ; 
for he wanted the creation of some general authority over 
the narrow-minded, land-hungry, colonial governments ; 
60 as to inaugurate his sagacious national policy. Bear in 
mind that Franklin was then the postmaster-general of 
the British Provinces, the first and only national officer 
ever appointed by the British authorities. It is consider- 
ably doubted, whether he run a mail into this township. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 15 



THE REACTION. 

"When Franklia saw both his union and land plans 
shelved, in consequence of the narrow views of the British 
ministry and the provincial egotisms, he saw more than 
ever the necessity of a policy that would free North Amer- 
ica from the trans as well as cis-Atlantic impediments 
to the concordant development of the future American 
people. 

The conduct of the war that followed brought to his 
mind further enlightenment, and he saw clearer, why the 
Indians took kindly to the French and the Moravians, 
while they were bitterly hostile to the English and Anglo- 
Americans, and he changed his tone in his publications 
accordingly, and it influenced the public mind. The best 
he wrote on the subject was his essay, " Remarks concern- 
ing the Savages of !N"orth America." 

When, subsequently, England, after the peace of 1763, 
simply pocketed Canada, it was a unity of North America 
not at all to his liking, because it was a mere union under 
the British crown, whilst the several provinces remained 
separate, and there would therefore be a chance for the 
British cabinet to play them off upon each other by en- 
couraging their rivalries. To his mind now, the territory 
acquired was not crown or provincial land, but soil free to 
the men who came to till it and to live upon it. He was 
glad to see the barriers broken down between the East 
and the West, and that there were more in and outlets for 
commerce than the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence. In- 
deed, he never was a friend of the public policy, so much 
acted on by the French, that rivers and their facilities are 
the only points in a country's development ; he knew, as 
postmaster-general, the inmiense importance of land com- 
munications. 

When, between 1777 and '83, he resided, as American 
minister, in Paris, and France became our ally in our 
struggle for independence from England, he became more 
than ever alive to the benefits open to America by French 
and other European accessions, which, he knew then. 



16 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 

would be much diminished if English supremacy and ex- 
clusiveness prevailed. 

THE ROYAL LAND POLICY. 

I presume that, without me telling it, you have found 
out already, that much of the love of country professed for 
America is a love of land. The politics of England to- 
ward the North American colonies were always in the 
main a land policy. Hence the first step, after the treaty 
of Paris in April, 1763, which transferred our West tem- 
porarily to Great Britain, was a cabinet order, issued Oc- 
tober 1, 1763, forbidding all land purchases from the In- 
dians by individuals, companies, churches, and bodies 
politic, and ordaining that all purchases must be made by 
and for the crown. This measure carried with it the En- 
glish absolutism as to the rights of property, and this most 
fatal heirloom England afterward left to America. It 
starts with the fiction that the lands all belong to the su- 
preme power of the country, that the rights of property 
granted by it are absolute rights vested in the grantee or 
possessor. These rights of present owners are a denial of 
the' authority of the state to have a true land and real es- 
tate policy for all time to come, in which the future rights 
and interests of society are the main criterion. The same 
impediment now perplexes Gladstone as to Irish land laws. 
Its fountain head are false ideas of sovereignty. Thus 
North America became not only a crown land but a royal 
domain. We may see its wickedness toward us by the 
fact that the United States CongresSj when drafting the 
ordinance of 1787, felt called upon to abrogate a part of it 
by special rules as to inheritances, wills, and conveyances, 
so that real estate may be conveyed by lease and release, 
or bargain or sale. 

The legal fiction that the lands of a country, which a 
European power is colonizing, are the domain of the sov- 
ereign or sovereignty of the so-called mother country was 
left untouched. The Indians were not, as was the pre- 
tense, protected against individual aggressions, because 
these were, notwithstanding, committed by many persons 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 17 

under special grants to favorites. Nor was a wise land 
policy founded upon it, in which the Indian pretensions, 
as well as the schemes of the land speculators, would have 
been reduced to a nunimum, and the rights of the good, 
actual settler made the true basis. The main wrong was 
thus continued to the United States. 

THE AMERICAN LAND SYSTEMS. 

The authorities of the several British colonies that 
became States after the achievement of American independ- 
ence had, before the revolution, endeavored covertly to 
slip in their own sovereignty for that of the king, and had 
claimed that the sovereignty over the " back country " 
could be acquired by them by the occupation of their citi- 
zens under grants from them. The Ohio Land Company 
of the Washington brothers, in 1749, was such an en- 
deavor. Pennsylvania was also crowding up to and across 
the Ohio, and so was Connecticut overleaping Xew York 
and working up a title to what is now our Western Re- 
serve. The Herrnhuters and Moravians had acquired 
rights in themselves by direct dealings with the Indians. 
And the ordinance of 1787 exempts, in the section quoted, 
" the Kaskaskias, St. Vincent, and neighboring villages " 
from the general law, because they " professed themselves 
citizens of Virginia," and therefore were entitled to have 
" saved their laws and customs relative to the descent and 
conveyance of property." This, our region of Ohio, re- 
mained unaffected by these special colonial (state) move- 
ments, because no one had settled here, up to 1800, under 
colonial or state grants. The treaties at Fort Stanwix, 
October 27, 1784, and at Fort Mcintosh, January 21, 1785, 
were meant to extinguish all Indian title in Ohio, and to 
make it absolute in the United States ; but the real exter- 
mination of it was Mad Anthony's victory in 1794. This 
part of our history looks queer, if we read with it this 
clause of the ordinance of 1787 : " The land and property 
of the Indians shall never be taken from them without 
their consent, and in their property, rights, and liberty 
they never shall be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and 



18 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 

lawful wars authorized by Congress." This means that 
statesmen shall write humanities into the laws, but that 
the men of the sword shall interpret and construe them. 
Thus the provisions of the ordinance " for preventing 
wrongs being done to the Indians, and for preserving 
peace and friendship with them," were never carried out. 

THE SEQUEL OF THIS POLICY. 

It is ever to be regarded as a misfortune that the higher 
characters of the United States could not well get the pub- 
lic lands of the country out of the clutches of the states 
without asserting a sovereignty for the United States that 
was, to speak mildly of it, a remitter to royal assumptions. 
The United States military acted, as we have seen, in the 
treaties at Fort Stanwix and Fort Mcintosh, on the policy 
embodied in the royal order of October 1, 1763 ; but the 
declaration of Washington, in one of his first messages, 
1789, " that it was the law of the United States," secured 
it general public acquiescence, though there had been no 
corresponding legalization by Congress. Thus became a 
British cabinet order the law of the land here. 

On it rest to-day, and have rested for a hundred 
years, the land purchases and removals of the Indians, and 
all the land grants and sales, the formation of new states, 
townships, etc., with the arbitrary rectangular system of 
surveys. The rectangles and squares have all proved un- 
suited to our rural development-, to our so-much-needed 
communal unity, and to our economic husbandry. We 
have, by public and private action, modified the original 
surveys and mapping, and are still at work to make our 
grounds more natural in their contour, and more suitable to 
our social and political necessities. 

The United States surveyor of our township was the 
famous Israel Ludlow ; the geographer, Thomas Hutchin- 
son, a branch of whose family still resides in this town- 
ship. Why there was at all a geographer, what he noted, 
platted, and reported, we could not learn. The United 
States oflicials in Washington replied to our inquiries that 
there is no report on file in Washington. Such an officer 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 19 

would have been extremely useful in a good land policy 
for nuiking reservations for public grounds, forests, etc. 

THE SYMMES PURCHASE. 

This transaction, entered into October 25, 1788, for 
the details of which I must refer you to Mr. Long's excel- 
lent and accurate recital, was the product of the juridical 
premises, upon which Congress dealt with the lands of the 
country. They rested on ambiguous conceptions as to the 
rights and duties of the Government, the Indian, and the 
purchaser. The policy based thereon has been a failure 
both in its good public intentions as well as in the personal 
purposes which it was to observe. Symmes died far from 
being rich. The 208,540 acres conveyed to him out of the 
million acres sold to him and his partners at sixty-two and 
one-half cents an acre have all passed from him and his 
heirs. Instead of drawing settlers on the lands, it repelled 
many and misled others. The 103,142 acres reserved for 
church, school, and college purposes have in the main 
missed their object, and our township is actually in want 
of land for public buildings, roads, groves, and to hold 
the elections. The school section was rented out o^n short- 
sighted terms for about forty years and denuded of tim- 
ber, reduced in fertility, and marred in its natural beauty. 
About 1845, it was ordered to be sold, by popular vote, 
as the best way to conserve the land and to get a reliable 
revenue. The proceeds ($53,000) were put into the State 
treasury at a perpetual interest of 6 per cent. The minis- 
terial section is still, with the exception of fourteen acres, 
leased out on the old terms of twelve and one-half cents per 
acre. The college township, that should have given Ham- 
ilton county a broad basis for a university, is beyond its. 
limits, in Butler county, and the lands are leased out at 
rates that bring in a ridiculous small income. 

The outcome of these several reservations, especially 
the 1,280 acres in our school and ministerial sectionsy 
would seem to be a protest against all land reservations.. 
That would, I think, be an error. There were parts of 
our township which should have been reserved for publie 



20 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 

grounds, for township buildings, school lots, and commons. 
This community has paid for re-purchases of ground for 
public purposes over $10,000, and yet it has no public 
places except school lots and roadsides. A republic with 
too little public property is as wrong in principle as one 
that has too much. A mere conglomerate of rei privatce is 
not a res j)uhlica. It will cost this township more than the 
whole school section brought, to get the grounds, that will 
in a short time be found indispensable to the right conduct 
of our public business. I estimate that the cost of fuel 
and lumber now annually imported into this township is 
equal to four per cent interest on a million dollars. 

"When we reflect on this result of a public policy that 
went too far in creating and succoring private wealth, we 
cease to wonder at the " inarticulate yearnings," as Car- 
lyle calls them, for the ancient communism in lands and 
wealth that are ever breaking out in modern society. And 
though we recoil from the radical changes which a return 
to it would cause ; yet we must admit that some things 
must be purely public wealth, if we want to have a healthy 
public spirit. 

The reservations in the " Symmes Purchase " proved 
so useless because they were placed under defective pub- 
lic administrations, and were not properly apportioned 
among the public wants. 

AN AFTER-CLAP. 

Symmes had agreed to reserve a full township of 
land opposite the mouth of the Licking for college pur- 
poses. But he delayed the assignment, and was allowed to 
do so by those in Washington who feared his influence as a 
former member of Congress. When about 1800 the Gov- 
ernment demanded compliance, and claimed Millcreek as 
this college township, it turned out that Symmes had sold 
portions of it already. They then asked for Spring- 
field, but the same difliculty existed there, and thereupon 
he tendered Greene township. The United State Govern- 
ment sent out a committee, whether of Congressmen, 
officers, or citizens, I was unable to learn, to examine and 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 21 

report. Mr. Cist, who claimed to have seen the report, 
though, on inquiry from me, it can not be found in the 
Interior Department in "Washington, says : " That the 
committee advised the rejection of Greene township, 
because it was an undesirable locality, being too rough 
for farming, and too wild for the uses of civilized 
life." This official judgment on our township was long 
regarded as a severe reflection on it ; and you, too, may, 
like many of the older pioneers, object to having it re- 
vived. But I think that if there is any reflection at all in 
this report it rests on those who made it; for every day 
shows more and more what a mistake they made. How 
much better would this township have been for a college 
than Oxford, in Butler county, where the intended seat of 
learning was finally located. But how much better it is, 
on the other hand, for us that this township was sold out- 
right away from Symmes, than that we should now hold 
our lands on perpetual lease under some state board that 
would most likely be as blind about our best interests as 
they have been in reference to the management of a col- 
lege or a university. 

The Swiss now laugh at the old reports of Roman offi- 
cers, made about 2,000 years ago, in which they lament over 
the worthlessness of Switzerland; why may we not smile 
at our United States officials who went about seventy years 
ago up Lickrun to the foot of the hill, on which our good 
pioneer, Dater, now has his fine residence and elegant 
grounds, fields, and vineyards, and then retreated with a 
slander on this township in their heads ? They thought they 
had reached the end of the world ; we know they were 
just at the beginning of beautiful landscapes. 

THE ORGANIZATION OF THE TOWNSHIP. 

I have searched in vain in the county commissioners' 
office, and in our township records, for the proceedings of 
the first organization of this township. It was unques- 
tionably done, " according to law," and could not there- 
fore have taken place before 1802 ; for the territorial law 



22 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 

authorizing the organization of townships passed January 
18, 1802, that of the State a few months hUer. 

The territorial government, under the Ordinance of 1787, 
consisted up to 1798 of a governor, a secretary, and three 
judges, all of whom had to be landholders; the governor 
1,000 acres, the secretary and judges each 500 acres. The 
court of quarter sessions appointed constables and jus- 
tices of the peace. This recalls the remark of Car'.yle, 
that " American government began in anarchy plus the 
constable." But he forgot to tell us that the constable 
itself is an importation from France ; for the British never 
like to acknowledge how much of their institutions is 
either imported or borrowed from abroad. It is just so 
with the organization of this township. The few people 
that lived here before 1802 were perfectly content with 
the territorial government that existed for eleven years 
from 1788 to 1799, because it was the nearest thing to no 
government at all, which was, as we know, their ideal Re- 
public. They hardly welcomed the legislature that met 
in Cincinnati in 1799, and when the law passed for the or- 
ganization of townships in 1802 it is more than likely that 
they did not act under it for several years. 

The State law for the organization of townships pro- 
vided that the constable should call the primary meeting ; 
that he and a chairman, to be elected by the .meeting, 
should keep order, and, if necessary, arrest and safely keep 
any and all disturbers of the meeting. It took fifteen 
male tax-payers to constitate a quorum. 

When organized, the meeting, was to elect by ballot: 

Three or more trustees. 

Two overseers of the poor. 

Three fence viewers. 

Two appraisers of houses. 

One lister of personal property. 

A sufficient number of supervisors of lands. 
Please take a glance at this goveiniment for a few mo- 
ments. It was really a disjunctive conjunction of six 
governments. And soon there was superadded a seventh, 
that of the trustees of sections sixteen and twenty-nine. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 23 

All not only independent of each other, but acting as far 
apart as if they were not of the same township. Our 
municipality was never an "^ i^luribus Unum;" for there 
was no union, but a septenary. It is now a duodecimfid, 
which is not a large multiple considering the disjoint- 
ed ness it started with. 

Holding office was then a duty, not a right ; for there 
was a line of $5.00 imposed on any one refusing an office 
to which he was elected. In the act of 1831 it was re- 
duced to two dollars. It exists yet as to the trustees of 
the ministerial section. The idea of duty to hold office 
went under as offices grew more remunerative, and to-day 
even supervisor offices pay so largely that there is quite a 
competition for them. No fine has been collected since 
1850. 

Every adult male, not paying taxes otherwise, had to 
pay $2.00 capitation tax. The charge for every bond serv- 
ant was $1.00 ; every horse, mule, or ass fifty cents ; neat 
cattle twelve and one-half cents per head; every store 
$10.00. Taverns were under county rule, and paid a 
graduated license. 

Marriage was then lawful for males seventeen years 
of age, and females at fourteen. And yet the males did 
not become of age until twenty-one, and females until 
eighteen. 

Of this township organization De Tocqueville has said : 
" It is the foundation of American government ; in it 
resides its sovereignty and democracy; it preceded the 
county, the State, the Union." And many have talked 
this ideality after him, and taken up this misconception 
of our institutions. It never was fully true of Massachu- 
setts, and as to the other New England States it was al- 
ways a misleading premise. As to the rest of the Union 
this local sovereignty doctrine has done infinite mischief, 
whilst as to us in this township the theory is contrary to 
the facts. The Union was complete in 1783, the Ordi- 
nance for our first public organism, a federal law, was 
passed in 1787 ; the State of Ohio was instituted in 1802 ; 
our township was formed about 1804 ; and the call for it 



24 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 

came from a constable appointed by a court of justice. 
"Where is the sovereignty? 

THE REAL IMPORT OF THIS ORGANIZATION. 

It is a copy of the imperfect lower municipal organi- 
zation called I'ithings in England, as explained by Black- 
stone, vol. 1, page 114-116. Our law makers retained the 
older Saxon name " Townshijj" preferring it to " Tithing" 
the more modern. They substituted for " ten freeholders," 
"fifteen taxpayers;" for the ''tithingman," the "chair- 
man ; " but otherwise adhered to the original forms, in- 
cluding the judicial conception given by Blackstone, that, 
" wherever there is a constable there is a township." 

It may be well to quote to you also the primary object 
of the English organization, viz : "to prevent rapines and 
disorders, and to bring together good men of family who 
dwelt together and were free securities and pledges for the 
good behavior of each other, and to keep the peace." 
This idea is still contained in our township 'Squires, whom 
the law calls Justices of the Peace. The principle is 
recognized also in ,the judgments given by courts against 
towns for property destroyed by mobs ; otherwise it is 
much lost sight of. 

Had Blackstone understood German, he would have 
known that the word " Town " is a corruption of the word 
Zaiui — fence. The word Township is literally translated 
a Fenccshij), and its legal significance is that there is a 
fenced-in locality wherein there are public guarantees for 
keeping the peace. The Germans have for this " fenced-in " 
or " hedged-in " precondition, created a more modern 
word — Einfriedigung — meaning, literally translated, Im- 
peacement. In English, we have also adopted a new word 
from the Norman French, viz : Precinct^ which, however, 
contains only the idea of something set oft" with special 
boundaries. Our township has now four election precincts. 
You can not fail to notice that we are and have been drop- 
ping the Township. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 25 



THE DISORGANIZATION OF THE TOWNSHIP. 

To charge upon our primary Township organization an 
ingrained inferiority would be as falacious as it was to at- 
tribute to it an inherent superiority. It may be doubted 
whether, with a people that gathered together as ours did, 
who had to undergo so many social changes, any institu- 
tions could have had permanency. Political frame-work 
follows social formations, where the development is nor- 
mal. "With us society was encased in a preordained pub- 
lic organism before itself was formed, and hence the true 
order of evolution proceeded under institutions which, 
like store clothes, did not fit. We started with English 
models and went to French and German (the latter as to 
schools). In other parts of America, they began with 
French or German or Swedish models and changed to 
English. It would seem, therefore, that there were in our 
social conformations disorganizing, as well as organizing 
causes at work, that were sure to change or modify any 
and all organisms imposed from ideal considerations. In 
other words, our unsettled society would have unsettled 
institutions. The tendency to separateness that came out 
in organizing Westwood and Mount Airy, had their ante- 
cedents in special detached school districts, for there too 
we have secessions from the general township administra- 
tion and government. And I have often thought that it 
all arose out of the very spirit that brought this people 
into America. "We seem to think that the only way to 
improve is to go apart. And whenever we want a new 
thing, we create a brand-new corporation or company or 
board — as for instance, when we started this annual Har- 
vest Home Festival through an association. The French 
would have done it through the '■'■Commune.''^ 

Altogether, it would seem that we have been too ready 
to admire and too hasty tb condemn, and that we have 
about reached a social status when we must drift less and 
establish more. "We must be prepared to debate and re- 
flect on our public matters more as an organic society, and 
not to be afraid, if it be necessary to- our best development, 



26 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 

to merge ourselves with other organisms. The township 
organization has disappeared in other localities — for in- 
stance, in Cincinnati. Why not in ours ? 

STILL WITHOUT A UNAL PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION. 

From our old mud road system, with its compulsory 
road work for all male adults, we went to turnpikes with 
tollgates, the cost of construction to be half paid by the 
state and half by a company ; but it was managed by the 
directors of the Harrison turnpike that the State paid two- 
thirds and the company one-third, the State getting, how- 
ever, but half the stock and but one-third of the number 
of directors. The State put ^86,000 into it, and then sold 
its stock about twenty years afterward for about $19,000. 
Would it not have been wiser to have given its stock to 
the townships or county than to sell it for almost nothing 
to a corporation ; in fact, to one man ? Next came the 
so-called free county roads, built on road-bonds that were 
to be repaid by tolls. Next, macadamized roads, with cost 
assessed on the adjacent land-holders ; and lately we have 
gone back to the old mud roads, repaired by two days 
road work, supplemented by most exorbitant taxation. 

Now we have all these road systems in operation at once 

— every man for himself and the take the hindmost — 

plus our Westwood railroad, built part by donations, part 
stock subscription; and part on bonds. Nobody is satisfied 
with these disjunctive modes as a whole, nor with either 
of them. More or less arrogant injustice was and is being 
done in all of them, which I will not particularize, but 
must state the general result, namely: that proportion- 
ally speaking, the roads cost more and do less good to the 
public than any road system in the world. The same is 
true of our public schools. It would be improper to 
charge this defective public conduct on any portion of our 
society, and equally so to exempt any from the blame at- 
tached. The universal cause is, I think, to be found in 
our fidgety aversion to all unal public administration, 
which, under the circumstances, was perhaps so far inevit- 
able. The time lias come, however, when our society 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 27 

must be held as no longer excusable, if it persists in the 
seperatistic public conduct that impedes our progress. 

OUR PUBLIC CONDUCT THE REFLEX OF OUR SOCIETY. 

It was pointed out to me a few days ago by our 
worthy fellow citizen Mr. Ross Fenton, whom I was con- 
sulting about certain data in our township history, that 
but tAvo of the houses now remain that existed sixty years 
ago between his father's tavern, the Seven-mile House and 
the east line of the township; and the conversation 
brought to mind memories of other disappearances. Not 
merely our township organs have changed and been in 
part abolished, but the log cabins, barns, out-houses, and 
the very fences that made this a " fcnceship " have also had 
to undergo modifications and make way for things more 
suited to our new conditions. And so have ceased those 
innumerable other things that were so natural to pioneer 
life and look so unnatural to us — as for instance, the big 
fire-places or open chimneys, ever gaping for more wood, 
and the cooking and the sitting by open fires, with all the 
other worship of ever-burning fires. We no longer raise 
our own buckwheat — hardly our own food any way, nor 
that for our domestic animals. Hog raising for market 
has stopped as completely as making maple sugar and 
molasses and having beehives. The fuel for our house- 
holds will soon be coal almost exclusively. In short, look 
where we will and we see new social and political develop- 
ments. It was as nonsensical in us to be unjust to the new 
from a thoughtless admiration of the old, as to forget the 
glories of the old in wondering at the glitter of the new. 
Pioneer life had many charms and merits, as well as hard- 
ships and mistakes, but one thing it had not — lasting 
family endearments and neighborhood attachments. A 
speaker once said from this stand, that weeds were his 
most successful crop while he was a farmer, and a bye- 
stander remarked : " weeds are the only permanent out- 
growth in Greene township." And it did look so for some 
time, but the public eye is on them, and laws are being 
passed that will remedy this evil. I take from all this : 



28 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 

1. The lesson that when the people shall be more constant 
in their private economy, that of the authorities will also 
become more stable; and 2. That whenever reactions or 
reverses set in, there are also rebounds that give us new 
and better directions. Let us bring this fully to our mind 
by a few statistics as to our population. 

OUR POPULATORY PROGRESS. 

The census reports, that give the population of town- 
ships before 1850, have not been accessible to me. Frgm 
the best information I could get, I find that the population 
of this township was under 400 in 1810; about 1,000 in 
1820; about 2,000 in 1820, and about 3,000 in 1840. The 
census reports give it in 1850 at 3,948; in 1860, at 4,426; in 
1870 at 4,356, and 1880 at 4,851. This would show that 
between — 

1800 and 1810 the increase was 500 per cent. 

1810 and 1820 the increase was 150 per cent. 

• 1820 and 1830 the increase was 100 per cent. 

1830 and 1840 the increase was 50 per cent. 

1840 and 1850 the increase was 30 per cent. 

1850 and 1860 the increase was 15 per cent. 

1860 and 1870 a falling oft' of. 70 persons. 

1870 and 1880 an increase of 12 per cent. 

The progressive fall in the percentage leads us, when 
investigated, to two peculiar phenomena in our history, 
namely: that between 1830 and 1840, immigration into the 
township slackened, whilst emigration from it increased. 
Looking into the several valuations of land, and the re- 
turns of the products per acre, I found concurrent with 
the facts just stated, an ascent in the price of land, and a 
descent in fertility, which deterred, of course, new pur- 
chasers, and induced sales and departures. Take with 
these phenomena the other one, that with each generation 
born here, the attachments to birthplaces grow more inert, 
and patriotism for the whole country more intense, and we 
see one more effect produced by economic conduct, that 
runs up money values, and runs down production in the 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OP GREENE TOWNSHIP. 29 

lands. We see now the reason why the ratio of popula- 
tory increase diminished more and more. By 1870, how- 
ever, and since, there has been a cessation in both currents, 
and we have been and are coming more and more into 
condition of self-development from within ourselves, with 
an assurance that our youth cling more to their mother 
country, or as we Germans call it. Fatherland. 

1 wish I had time to expatiate upon this point; for it 
leads to interesting data and deductions. I can only state 
a few more facts, namely, that one-fourth of our present 
population is foreign born; with their children, they are 
over half of the population. In the number of families, 
they are more than half. The census of 1850 mentions 
one negro; that of 1860, twenty-one; that of 1870, ninety- 
eight; for 1880, the census report I have does not give the 
number of colored persons. 

As to wealth, this township was valued by Congress 
to be worth $14,395.50. On the duplicate it stands now at 
$2,148,000. I think it cheap at three million. Taking the 
latter amount as a basis, and it gives an average wealth 
for each man woman and child, of $618 ; or for each fam- 
ily, $3,750. This is below the average in the whole coun- 
try, which is over $700 for each person, and over $4,200 
for each family. That of our whole State is S625 and 
$3,900 respectively. The annual income for the whole 
population is estimated at $400,000. I can not say on what 
data it is based. The average average for every man, 
woman, and child is 4| acres ; for every family, 21 acres. 

THE EARLIER SETTLERS OF THE TOWNSHIP. 

Let me now read to you the list of names of the actual 
settlers of this township, who came here before 1850. 

[Mr. R. here read the list that follows at the end] and 
then continued: 

These names bring more vividly, than any thing else 
would, the realities of pioneer life before us. To think 
them over, and to reflect on them, is, as I take it, both a 
pleasant as well as instructive exercise. The list is made 
from the real estate records of the county, omitting on pur- 



30 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 

pose all who were non-resident landholders. It takes, to 
my mind, more than a paper title to real estate to make a 
noteworthy pioneer. It will most likely need some cor- 
rections and additions. That there are none but landed 
proprietors on it arises from no invidious preference for 
this class of our citizens. On the contrary, it is regretted 
that the names of many meritorious factors in our devel- 
opment, such as mechanics, hired men, millers, distillers, 
teachers, doctors, preachers and artists, who never owned 
any real estate, could not be obtained by me in time. 

A list of the hired girls, graduated by the length of 
time they served in any one family, so as to find by the 
same inquiry also the best wives, was also suggested to 
me. I had to tell the man who made it that hired girls 
are not yet an historic theme in this township. Our pio- 
neers, both male and female, were largely their own hired 
help. The pioneer wives had "help" principally from 
nei2:hbors if housework got into eventualities in which 
the joint work of husband and wife was not suflicient. 
Before 1820 there were no hired girls at all — the "old 
man " being the aid-de-camp of his " old woman." Even 
in 1833, hired girls were a luxury enjoyed by few. 

But this and other subjects must be deferred. And 
now let me say generally that our archives and public 
books and papers are not well kept, and, what there are 
preserved, present very meager details. May I suggest that 
this Harvest Home Association of ours will see to it that 
this work is done. It would be a most praiseworthy ex- 
tension of its unquestioned present utility. 

In the list submitted are 395 names. All but two are 
males. We must, however, think of each of the males as 
the husband of a wife, and a good one, too. To my knowl- 
edge there is not a batchelor among the men on the list. 
The chief rights of the males were to be husbands, fathers 
and providers for their families, and to stand by the Com- 
monwealth ; those of the women, to be wives, mothers and 
the economic heads of families. More would have been 
regarded as surplusage ; less as a defect. 

And, now, before I give you some more " old news," 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 31 

allow me to tell you that, when any of you hereafter talk 
of the fathers and mothers of this good land, you ought to 
bear in mind that the list I have read to you proves, be- 
yond the possibility of a doubt, that they loere an immi- 
grated,, and 7iot an indigenous, people. Paradise, or the 
origin of mankind, has never been placed here by any 
body. And if it ever were here, " unbeknownst " to history, 
there have been no survivors of the race started here then, 
nor even of the monkey, our Darwinian aboriginal prede- 
cessor. The old folks of this township are descendants of 
various progenitors, viz. : Yankees, New Yorkers, Jersey- 
men, Pennsylvanians, Virginians, North and South Caro- 
linians, not to forget Kentuckians; and all have again, 
for immediate or remote ancestors, English, Scotch, Irish, 
French, Swiss, German, Hollanders and — well, it must be 
told — Africans. 

So, if you must make some narrow social, political or 
religious mold, as to parentage, among us, you will please 
construct it wide enough to take us all in, and with a 
generous American allowance of room to spare. 

NOTABLE MATTERS IN THE LIST. 

The list comprises almost 400 persons, all landholders 
before 1850. Of these 30 are alive and 21 still live in this 
township ; 16 are natives of this country, 18 are foreign- 
born; of these natives 6 were born in this township; of 
these foreign-born 12 came from Germany, 1 from Switzer- 
land, 1 from France and 1 from Ireland. Among all these 
survivors there is, if my information is correct, but 1 
widower. 

I tried to ascertain the number of widows still living 
out of the 395 that were wives of the husbands given in 
the list ; but found it impossible to get accurate data 
without journeys and inquiries, which I felt unable to un- 
dertake. I know of but 6, and all well provided for. 
There are doubtless a few more, but not over 12, which 
would go to show that the general rule of the greater 
longevity of widows^ as compared to widowers, is true also 
of this township. 



32 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 

The list contains the names of two persons, James W 
Gazlaij and Samuel Leiois, that deserve special mention 
for their independence. The first voted as Congressman, 
with but three others against tlie special donations of 
land to Lafayette. He was ever after an unpopular man ; 
being defeated at the next election (1824) by General 
Harrison. The second voted for years either singly or 
with a few others, in the teeth of the bystanding whips 
of both parties, the abolition ticket. Mr. Lewis was 
Ohio's first State Commissioner of our free schools, and 
he was all his life a promoter of education. 

This township has furnished three members of Con- 
gress, viz: The aforementioned J. W. Gazlay, Alexander 
Long, and John A. Gurley. 

It has had two members of the legislature to-wit : 
Robert Moore, afterwards judge of the court of common 
pleas and one of the first presidents of this Association ; 
also your humble servant who served both in the lower 
house and in the senate, and became afterwards a member 
of the convention that framed our present State constitu- 
tion. A grandson of one of the pioneers, Frederick 
Moore, is now judge of the court of common pleas. A 
son of one of them, Enoch Carson, was LTiiited States 
collector of revenue in Cincinnati. Another son of one 
of the pioneers, Mr. Moss Fenton, was county treasurer a 
few years ago. A native of this township, Mr. Chas. 
Miller, is treasurer elect. 

Five on the list have been county commissioners — 
Isaac Jackson, Adam Moore, Wm. Benson, Ephraim 
"Williams and John Patton. A son of one of the pioneers, 
Joseph Reardon, was commissioner two years ago. 

Many of them held township oflices; but as I could 
not give a full list, I thought it best to reserve this part of 
our township history to a future investigation. I may name, 
however, a few of those who held their offices for several 
consecutive terms, to-wit: Jonathan Markland, Henry 
L. Wilmer, Noble Vezey, John Miller, Samuel Benn, James 
Vanzant, as trustees; David E. Steathem as treasurer, 
and J. B. Reddish as township clerk, Wm. M. Orr must 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GREENE TOWNSHIP. 33 

not be forgotten as model assessor of real and personal 
property. He is the person that has known and remem- 
bers more persons in this townsihp than any one else. I got 
many of my items from him. 

Among the 395 on the list, there is no colored person. 
Indeed, it must be mentioned that the laws and the pnblic 
disposition was, up to 1854, decidedly against "Americans 
of African descent." Very few were even employed as 
servants. Since 1850 there has been a reaction, and sev- 
eral families of that race have moved in, and some are also 
holders of real estate. 

CONCLUSION. 

With this, as I calculated, the hour allotted to my dis- 
course has about run out, and I have presented the essen- 
tial points of our township's history. I must leave some 
matters to my successors at other festivals. I am thank- 
ful to our Harvest Home Association for making me one 
of the laborers in a task which is so essential to us all, 
namely, the gathering up of historic data for permanent 
record. This association is the only undertaking in which 
our township exists as a united entirety, free from party, 
sect and race, or other division. It is founded in a natu- 
ral, endlessly, from year to year, renewable event. I hope 
that it so understands its mission as to ever remember that 
it must finally be merged in the township. Then will ap- 
ply to our work the poet's words : 

" Men and things may fleet away in time, 
But the world lives on forevei'." 



'If ^ ImT'I' 

If' 



LIST OF 

395 OF THE Earlier actual Settlers 

Green Township. 

1 Ia,niiltoM C "ouuty, Ohio 

FROM 1802 TO ks50. 



i<ph<o_Byebf.Id-(R<.-ibold) 
KetlUli 111. 







Section XII. 



Mcrllon XV 



Jobn 0< 



li.lliildio 



i "j-ihnSoblp, Mui 
JiibnBaeita, Min 






*""•» X«l. 



' i. Ucr,.,„, 

; .1. ci.,k ' 

I i>. Kich.ri„„ 

In. i><is 
II. »> 
Wni. (Irifflli 
.*• Widmor 
Tuos. Wioler 
J. Klur 



WiD. Hillvr— (bod) 
D4TJd Sh«ii))trd 



(Ltncemlnw) 



Socllon XXIII, 

1 Arthur Fcrgtimo 
R- Coitpin 
Jo».lfi«ii Wood 



J^ 




ic«b Mark 
«crtl«» XXIV. 



M«CIUB XXV. 



B. Bink* 



nociua XXVI. 



1.8. RttMArJa 
Saiuuel Vail 
I Jnoalbsn MarkUnil 



N«rll«a xxrii' 

Jm. Cos 

n. UilUr. f«iher 

F»d.lim.r. (MB) 



S«clloii XXX. 



"Irrflan XXXI. 



S. HtrkUod 
M. Sbota 
Si. \Vou<1 
D. Dusky 
1*. Otrduvr 

McOee 
U. BicbardHon, jvioi'H 



J.ChMsbwruUKh 



O. F. Uarib 
E.EcUards 
Euocb SbepiMrd 



Miahtel Rcib< 
K.Si.Hifthuiii 
II. Sruddvr 
Win. Tapb 
B. lUnlr 



J.HcVli«(ur 
R. C<Kbf4a 
II. Uoiiari 



ncellon XXXVI. 



/>M« IJU hit tmfonnmliai 



lUMirn PnMT 



B. U<; 

Higb Bnimao 
Cbv Bar 



>*««lt«a XXvill* 



«»rll«M XX. 



> 



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n 



